Public Comment

Unconscious racism? "Revitalizing Bart Plaza to welcome bigger and more diverse groups of people??"

By Anamaria Sanchez Romero
Monday August 09, 2010 - 08:06:00 PM

In the online BERKELEYSIDE, Aug. 4th, 2010, Frances Dinkelspiel writes of a $2.25 million budget for the city to make over the downtown “Bart Plaza to become an inviting spot.”. A City planner has the audacity to say the Plaza is worn and outdated, and "It is really exciting to think we will have a space people will feel really good about being in and using.… The goal is to create a space that is more welcoming to bigger and more diverse groups of people”. 

To deconstruct the framework: is there a racial animus behind the statements of business leaders and white planners who feel the area is uninviting? Is DIVERSITY of “bigger groups” of people now used to recast development projects as race-neutral? 

Which groups of people are they talking about? The tone of the article and the writer's selection of quotes implies people do not feel good at the Plaza, thus they claim that few people go there as if it is uninviting. and dismisses the vibrancy of people using the space--most of us are people of color. For years my relatives and friends and many locals feel welcome to be with people of our communities at the mellow Plaza--and to be entertained at no cost! 

The principle of EQUITY to more fairly allocate resources for minority groups and to involve ethnic and class minorities to advise decision makers is missing here. In this planner “visioning” of bigger groups, “diversity” is fronted to cover over the years of human rights struggles for equity, inclusion and now, social justice. 

Is not the Bart Plaza a friendly public space already shared by DIVERSE groups of people? No mention of the locals (most are people of color) who congregate there in good weather filling up the seating or the vendors who sell jewelry, crafts, incense, the break dancers, skaters, musical groups from classical violins to rap to jazz, etc. 

Some people say in tearing it up for months of construction, displacing users is part of a strategy of domination by upscale groups. An obvious discriminatory intent lurks behind—avoiding avoiding any acknowledgment of the current Plaza groups as community member stakeholders who deserve to be asked how they would redesign the Plaza. Instead, planners blot out their existence to be replaced by “more diverse groups of people.” Diversity sounds race-neutral? 

Some folks deconstruct this segment of city “planning” of the downtown as heralding a new era of segregation where differences in economic class and income function as a stand-in for race, recasting the framework to be “race-neutral”. Thus, by “profiling”—using class, a class bias can stand out front and race profiling can become subtle lurking beneath unconscious racism. 

It follows that newcomers with higher incomes who can afford to buy food and drinks at outdoor tables where the proprietors extend their commercial space outside into a newly landscaped PUBLIC space, may indeed, cumulatively “improve” and “revitalize” the Bart Plaza. The presumption is that this little area (hardly the size of a European plaza) will help draw more business, thus will not be considered "dead" for the landlords, with too many nearby empty business sites. 

Yet, people-wise, when the sun is out, the Plaza is alive! For years, it has been a local gathering place for hundreds of community people; of late most all are African-American, still others are Latinos, Asians, and whites. Few are homeless; some are veterans of wars. Some are poor, some are mentally challenged, but not all. And, the high school and language school youths congregate at lunch and after school in the Plaza space. Often, some Mexicans play and sing folk music; break dancers perform, other times we hear Mozart, a jazz group plays or a blues singer. When the sun falls, and the cold rises from the ground, less people congregate—similar to the crowds on Fourth Street. On foggy days, less people congregate there. 

Gentrifying (cleaning up the plaza) for more and more upscale business use pushes out small businesses and the community folks who congregate there. We know it is the high rents that are responsible for any neglect in keeping up the maintenance, not our children and relatives who go downtown to hang out in the Bart Plaza. New business tenants pay exorbitantly high rents which is why so much of downtown commercial sites are vacant. 

Most of the people sitting and talking in the Plaza today will NOT be able to afford cafe table seating where one has to buy a minimum order. Lest we forget, this is PUBLIC SPACE for all of us; not to be privatized to benefit a few businesses and, a number of planners and consultants. 

Is this small Plaza to be a front yard for high rise tenants who will soon move in? Will the tables lining the public sidewalk be fenced in for private businesses? Where will the others of the uninvited public—the present locals—go ? Where will the entertainers go to? We will lose some of our local artistic culture. 

Is there any effort in the Planning Division to listen to people of color—to listen to people of lower incomes? Do we have to start again—workshops for unlearning racism so our city officials can confront and become conscious of the sophisticated versions of race/class discrimination that show up over and over in planners' visions? Some descision makers use planners to advocate for dispersal, displacement and removal of groups to “ETHNICALLY CLEANSE” public spaces claimed by the more affluent and powerful. Is this a trend here? 

Again, how can we confront and overcome such race/class discrimination so the human environment is sustainable for all of us in Berkeley?